SBIR Phase I: High-Salinity Produced Water Management by Recovering Solid Waste with Low Grade Thermal Energy

SBIR第一期项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是开发一个由太阳能供电的海水淡化系统。水被用于锂和稀有金属的开采，需要高效的水处理来生产淡水和浓盐水。在矿物回收系统中，这种类型的水处理可以产生有价值的关键物质作为副产品。许多锂和稀有金属矿区位于美国太阳能资源丰富的地区。为了使水处理具有经济性，必须大幅度提高传统蒸馏过程的能源效率。利用太阳能为拟议的系统提供动力也减少或消除了在偏远地区部署该过程所需的运输燃料的需要。拟议的第一期项目将开发一个利用太阳能的系统，通过溴化锂（LiBr）多效蒸馏（MED）干燥器集成系统对含盐尾矿水进行热脱盐处理。该系统还包括第二个带有机械蒸汽压缩（MVC）的MED和一个LiBr再生器。系统中使用的所有电能和热能都是从太阳能转化而来的。水处理过程还包括锂和稀有金属的回收。该设计采用了机械蒸汽压缩的蒸馏系统。与传统MED相比，我们独特的设计使我们的系统比传统MED紧凑10-20倍。在第一阶段，该公司将开发基于物理的模型来分析该技术，并建立和评估小型原型以确认其可行性。所提出的集成化、增强型和紧凑型MED + MVC设备可以强化传热传质过程，减少热损失。通过将多个气缸配置集成到一个气缸或类似的配置中，我们的设备设计将超越传统的MED系统。对所提出的蒸馏系统的建模和仿真表明，该系统的能源效率提高了10倍。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this SBIR Phase I project is to develop a desalination system powered by solar energy. Water is used for lithium and rare metal mining, requiring energy-efficient water treatment to produce fresh water and concentrated brines. This type of water treatment in mineral recovery systems can yield valuable critical materials as byproducts. Many lithium and rare metal mining fields are located in regions in the US where solar energy is abundant. Energy efficiency in traditional distillation processes must be significantly improved to make water treatment economical. The use of solar energy to power the proposed system also reduces or eliminates the need for transporting fuel for deployments of the process in remote areas. The proposed Phase I project will develop a system using solar energy to treat salty tailing waters through thermal desalination by an integrated system of lithium bromide (LiBr) multi-effect distillation (MED) dryer. The system also includes a second MED with mechanical vapor compression (MVC) and a LiBr regenerator. All the electrical and thermal energy used in the system are converted from solar heat. The water treatment process includes lithium and rare metal recovery as well. The design incorporates a distillation system with mechanical vapor compression. Comparing to traditional MED, our unique design enables our system to be 10-20 times more compact than traditional MEDs. During the Phase I project, the company will develop physics-based models to analyze the technology, as well as build and evaluate small prototypes to confirm the feasibility. The proposed integrated, enhanced and compact MED plus MVC equipment can intensify the heat and mass transfer processes and reduce heat losses. By integrating multi-cylinder configurations in one single cylinder or similar configurations, our equipment designs will exceed those of traditional MED systems. Modeling and simulation of the proposed distillation system show up to 10-fold improvement in energy efficiency.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.